In September, Bitcoin mining stocks continued their upward trend, outperforming Bitcoin itself, even as the industry’s economic pressures and longer hardware payback periods persist.
A recent update from The Miner Mag highlights that shares of Cipher Mining (CIFR), Terawulf (WULF), Iris Energy (IREN), Hive Digital Technologies (HIVE), and Bitfarms (BITF) appreciated between 73% and 124% within the last month. In comparison, Bitcoin (BTC) saw a decline of more than 3% during the same timeframe.
This surge in mining stocks occurs despite ongoing challenges in the industry fundamentals. The next difficulty adjustment for the Bitcoin network is anticipated to increase by 4.1%, which is expected to be the first epoch to average a hashrate above the zetahash mark, as reported by The Miner Mag.
The zetahash milestone was first achieved in September, corresponding to Bitcoin’s 14-day moving average hashrate. However, this milestone has not alleviated the profitability pressures.
Hashprice remains below $55 per petahash per second, influenced by increased network activity, while transaction fees have dropped to under 0.8% of monthly rewards — indicating diminished on-chain activity.
Nevertheless, miners pivoting towards GPU and AI initiatives are seeing positive investor responses, according to The Miner Mag. Hive Digital is advancing its shift into AI data centers, Iris Energy is scaling up with Blackwell GPUs, and Terawulf is gaining traction from its high-performance computing collaboration with Google.
Related: Bitcoin network mining difficulty rises to new all-time high
Bitcoin miner accumulation persists
Amid tighter profit margins, escalating costs, and increasing competition, Bitcoin miners are increasingly adopting diversification strategies to remain viable.
In addition to reallocating resources towards AI and high-performance computing, many miners have embraced a treasury strategy, holding onto more mined Bitcoin with the expectation of a future price increase.
Cointelegraph reported on this trend in January, noting a significant change in miner accumulation that gained momentum throughout 2024 as companies retained a larger portion of their output.
“In 2024, a significant trend emerged among Bitcoin miners, with many choosing to keep a greater share of their mined Bitcoin or avoiding selling altogether,” according to a January report by Digital Mining Solutions and BitcoinMiningStock.io.
Data from Glassnode reveals that miners are doubling down on this strategy in September, with wallet balances showing increases for three consecutive weeks. On September 9, net inflows reached 573 BTC — the highest daily increase since October 2023.
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